Former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump was convicted of contempt of Congress.
A former adviser to former President Donald Trump has been ordered to surrender to prison by July 1 to serve a four-month sentence he received after being convicted of contempt of Congress.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols in federal court in Washington on June 6 granted prosecutors’ request to make Mr. Bannon, 70, start serving his prison term after a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court recently upheld his conviction.
However, Judge Nichols, an appointee of President Trump, also said Mr. Bannon could seek a stay of his order. If a stay is granted, that could delay the surrender date.
Outside the courthouse, Mr. Bannon told reporters: “I’ve got great lawyers, and we’re going to go all the way to the Supreme Court if we have to.”
He also said that prosecutors would “not shut up Bannon, and they’re certainly not going to shut up MAGA,” or the Make America Great Again movement.
Mr. Bannon briefly worked for the White House during the early days of the Trump administration but departed in the fall of 2017. He transitioned to hosting a podcast called “War Room.”
‘Substantial Question of Law’?
Judge Nichols previously sentenced Mr. Bannon to time in prison for violating a federal law called Section 192, which prohibits defying congressional subpoenas but allowed Mr. Bannon to remain free while he fought his conviction. He said that Mr. Bannon’s appeal “raises a substantial question of law that is likely to result in a reversal or an order for a new trial.”
A U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit panel in May then rejected Mr. Bannon’s arguments that he was wrongly convicted. The arguments centered in part on how Mr. Bannon was relying on advice from counsel when he defied a subpoena from a House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
The appeals court “has squarely held that ‘willfully’ in Section 192 means only that the defendant deliberately and intentionally refused to comply with a congressional subpoena, and that this exact ‘advice of counsel’ defense is no defense at all,” U.S. Circuit Judge Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote for the panel.
Prosecutors then asked Judge Nichols to force Mr. Bannon to begin serving his sentence, in light of the ruling.
